Life has been crazy. Christmas snuck up on us and then was gone even quicker. After Christmas I got super sick for over a week and being pregnant and sick is not fun. We didn’t do anything for NYE, I don’t think we even watched the ball drop. We are party animals can’t you tell. I haven’t blogged in a while so this is a hodge podge of photos.
Arie knows a change is coming
This is my new purse I got from Etsy. I love it, it is real leather and from Barcelona.
I made gluten free banana bread, I havne’t had it in years. It was delicious
My fall craft.
Looked great on the front porch.
our festive porch
Carl bought milk and said, you know your due date is close when it’s the date your milk expires.
I swapped the trees for christmas
Carl did the tree and I did the porch trees
Arie loved the fresh snow
Shoveling is a family activity
Carl took this picture of Arie! This is a great photo
I loved our tree this year and it had the perfect spot.
Arie stuck close to me in the last weeks of pregnancy.
Our gluten free cut out cookies
We had to have baby Jesus
Another sweet photo of Arie that Carl took.
The end of the year was good, minus being sick. The best was to come and sooner than we would have known. 🙂
My second baby shower was hosted by my best friend and we had it at my house. It was the beginning of November which in the Midwest, you will never know what weather you get. We lucked out, we had beautiful sunny, warm weather. We all sat outside on our deck, we needed sunglasses and probably sunscreen, I think a few people might have gotten sunburned. The weather was perfect with the theme of Tacos, Margaritas and Sangria. We did some prep ahead of time to make the day of easier. I was excited to have all of my favorites! My friend did an awesome job!
Here are a few photos of the day.
the delicious taco spread we had
the sangria and blue margaritas
Arie went to the groomer before the shower
It was a beautiful day
the baby shower favors
one of my aunts couldnt make it and she sent us a card. She hand makes her cards!
This year we were busy the week of my birthday- we had something planned every other day.
October 30th- Sunday, we had tickets to the Amos Lee Concert, which was amazing! There is something about his music and something even more when it’s live. I am so glad we got tickets.
a few pictures, we had good seats
October 31st- Halloween
Loved our pumpkins this year
November 1st- my birthday Carl took me too a very fancy steak house- Ruth Chris Steak House I had lobster which was amazing and Carl had steak. Carl, got me a pedicure gift certificate, pretty earrings and tickets to A Christmas Carol play! It was a great birthday and very memorable.
What a great birthday! Thanks Honey!
November 2nd- I had gotten us tickets to tour US Bank Stadium, that was an awesome tour and well worth it.
Walking out on the field
Walking through the Delta Lounge
Vikings locker room
Prince Tribute, its made up of his song lyrics
Press box view
The week was packed and it wasn’t over yet, on Friday I had to clean for our 2nd baby shower that was at our house that weekend! Needless to say, I was pooped by Sunday!
I am blessed by the memories that were had during our busy week!
A few weekends ago, we went to a local food truck festival. It was free to get in, there was live music, beer and food of course.
I specifically wanted to go because of the Tot Boss-I tired the tots at the fair when I stopped and had to have them again. His truck had a continuous line of people wanting the tots. We tried a food truck that had delicious indian food and a truck that had kickin caribbean food.
Here are a few photos I snapped.
It was a great day
There were about 23 food trucks
The lines for Tot Boss
Delicious-Loaded Tots
Hot Indian Food
There was a cupcake food truck but they didn’t have GF so we went to a local place to get GF cupcakes
This was a fun day and something to do! I will definitely be keeping my eye open for these food trucks around town.
Here a few recipes that we have made in the last month or so.
This was chicken and lime soup. This was good, but to give more substance to the soup, I added rice. Carl did say, next time if I make it, I have to thicken the sauce a little more. It was fresh and light tasting.
This recipe is from Budget Bytes, I love her blog, I have cooked other recipes from there before.
Last week, I found this recipe on Pinterest. Carl really likes orange chicken, this was easy, made a lot and I made it gluten free. I liked that the sauce was only 3-ingredients. I did use the whole jar of orange marmalade, I didn’t want a strong BBQ sauce taste. This is from the Blog Crafty Morning, I haven’t cooked from there before.
I had to share these photos from August when my family got together at my parents house up north! So all my sisters are amazing cooks and I love when they share that with us. 🙂 She made us homemade individual pizzas.
All of the different ingredients
She used nan bread for the small ones
the big one was a gluten free crust
They were good, she used roasted tomatoes, sausage, fresh goat and mozzarella cheese, fig spread and arugula!
What a busy last month we had. We have seen family and friends a handful of times and that has been great. We have tried to make down time for ourselves, like puzzles! We have had awesome FISH FRYs (I wrote it in all-caps because it is that exciting for me because my fish are gluten free), went to the Lion King Musical and have been enjoying summer!
Here are a few photos!
Dog Life
I love this card! It’s actually a birthday card I gave a friend and it makes me smile. I bought it, cut the happy bday off and its hanging at work!
FISH FRY! I love my GF fish! This was Julys fish fry!
We had quite the spread!
We went to Duluth last month and I wanted a Duluth puzzle
We couldn’t find a piece and I was not going to bed until I found it. I did!
The puzzle was a fun one and kind of hard to put together.
I had to hurry up and put my puzzle together so I could start my book.
Carl, me and my 2 sisters went to the Lion King Musical! That was amazing!
A while back I made this chicken recipe, it was really easy and delicious with lots of flavor. I found it on Pinterest! That app that pretty awesome and all the stuff you can find on it is so mind blowing. I must say, I hate when I find a cute outfit and then there is no place to buy it! lol
Anyway, back to the food!
Carl really liked the lemon flavor that this had and the cream sauce with the chicken was good not to think. I did not modify the recipe, only used gluten free pasta and flour. I highly recommend this recipe!
The weekend after our housewarming/surprise birthday party and Carl’s actual birthday, we flew out to North Carolina-Blowing Rock for my sister-in-laws wedding. It was a quick trip there and back but was good to see Carl’s sister get married, all of the family and get out to the east coast.
the pond outside of the front of the resort
the bride and groom got married by the willow tree
Carl and I had an awesome southern lunch at a place in Blowing Rock
Also room and time for wine-It’s 5 o’clock somewhere
These were the center pieces and the two taller vases made it all the way to NC from the Midwest.
‘I’m So Fancy’
We clean up well- Carl’s aunt took this photo! It’s a good one!
The wedding was at the Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock, NC. It was about a 2hr drive north of Charolette. The drive up there was pretty cool with the green lush mountains. There was some road construction that made us feel like we were back in the Midwest.
On Friday night, everyone was hungry and needed a drink, so we ventured to town and hung out at the Blowing Rock Brewery. It was a pretty neat place because we sat outside and it was good for people watching.
On Saturday, Carl and I went into town to grab lunch and we stumbled upon this place- Rustique the food was fantastic. In the picture above I had a Trout Reuben- it was cornmeal crusted with gruyere, sauce, coleslaw and pancetta and Carl had pulled pork! It was so good, Carl tried my trout and said it was pretty good.
The centerpieces are part from my friend Teri’s wedding and Carl’s sister bought some from her so they made the trip from MN to WI all the way to NC.
I love the photos of Carl and I, we don’t always get photos of us so these turned out great. My dress was a coral color and Carl’s tie was a navy color, we coordinated pretty well. And a surprise to Carl’s family- he was dancing and they were surprised. Oh yes! Carl dances and we may have shut down a few wedding dances before! 🙂
It was a good weekend and wedding full of memories, family, love and laughter!
When we woke up on Sunday morning, it was so chilly, we felt like we were back in the Midwest! It was cold!
Carl’s birthday was on a Tuesday and I found a cool place to take him too that we haven’t been to before. I heard on the radio about a place in the metro that is replicated after the speakeasy’s. In order to get in, you have to find the “red door”!
The place is called the Volstead House, the atmosphere was really neat, they even dressed from the era as well.
We found the “red door”
Carl and his Old Fashion
Happy 30th Birthday honey!!!
Later that week, we met my friend Teri because it was her birthday over the weekend and we weren’t going to be in town.
I was super excited to see her and was super excited to get mussels!
I love me some seafood!
It was a busy weekend/week/next weekend! But all fun!
Here are a few recipes that I have made that were pretty good. Both recipe ideas came from Food Network shows. On Saturdays, I like watching Pioneer Woman and The Kitchen. On Netflix, Carl and I have been watching Worst Cooks in America.
This was a hearty meal and very easy to make. We had a good week of leftovers.
This recipe was delicious and had some kick. The idea for this recipe came from the Worst Cooks in America show. I started googling Paella and there are so many types that you can make. This one had shrimp and chicken. I had to buy $15 saffron threads for this recipes.
Go Blondie! 